Over the last ten years, design literature has investigated different approaches for design to transform organizational culture in the public sector. We are interested in addressing how design is equipping itself—with approaches, methods, tools, evaluation frameworks, etc.—to support pathways to systemic transformation in the public sphere toward social justice and sustainability, challenging traditional notions of prosperity and discussing the role of design in supporting a systemic, open and multi-level governance perspective aimed at well-being.

The track [Changing] Organizations and Policies welcomes contributions encompassing but not limited to: cases and empirical studies on design as a transformational lever for policies, programmes, services, and strategies; design methods and cases that scale up sustainable practices, cross-sector partnerships, and business models; studies and experimentations on adapting modes of designing for complex systemic transitions; development of evaluation frameworks and impact measurement of design interventions for systemic (social) innovation and organizational change.

• Service design
• Public sector innovation
• Sustainable transitions
• Organizational change
• Systemic innovation

How will new manufacturing processes impact products and systems? How will digital fabrication and digital craft emerge as strategies to conceive, design, and produce new products and systems? How will they trigger the capability to envision new emerging futures? And will they change and create new business models?

During the last decade, the continuous development of new manufacturing processes has impacted how we think, envision, and design new products and systems. They affect the entire value chain, from basic research to the finished product and delivery. Specifically, the profusion of digital fabrication and digital craft tools and technology is transforming how we develop, upgrade, and update products. Supporting idea creation, the value of tools applicable in the experimenting activities, the testing opportunities from prototyping to market, and the competitive advantage concerning sustainability are strategic factors of these new processes. Through them, we can speculate and envision new emerging materials, artifacts, and future scenarios with a sustainable perspective.

The track [Changing] Products and Production encourages contributions to explore the role of design practice and research in this envisioning and speculating process. And in how design can imagine a re-shored and unified manufacturing system that redesigns functions and services while integrating into urban territories.

• Advanced manufacturing
• Digital fabrication
• New products, processes, business models
• Emerging materials

Chiara Colombi, Politecnico di Milano
Venere Ferraro, Politecnico di Milano
Markus Holzbach, Offenbach University of Art and Design
KwanMyung Kim, Ulsan National Institute of Science & Technology

Will the design system be emancipated enough to contribute to the transformation processes of identities in different cultural contexts?

The notion of identity constitutes a fundamental axis for reflecting on design’s renewal and transformations. Identity is not immutable; it transforms with growth and social changes according to a multicultural and intercultural perspective.

The track Identities and [Changing] Identities welcomes contributions reflecting on: cultural identity (the identity roots of design, the authorial identities with their poetics, identity hegemony with the implications of a ‘monolingual’ of design, and reductive forms of identity homologation); the identity-alterity relationship (in its theoretical formulation, in the local dimension and related to other cultures, and in elaborating actions aimed at overcoming the fixed identities of gender, class, and religion); and identity concerning translation processes (an area that reflects on the revision of systems, tools, and programs for translating and communicating identity).

• Alterity
• Translation processes
• Identity systems
• Homologation
• Social design

José Allard, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Anna Barbara, Politecnico di Milano
Valeria Bucchetti, Politecnico di Milano
Peter Scupelli, Carnegie Mellon

The transition towards sustainability requires radical changes in how we produce, consume, and live. The prospect of sustainability necessarily places the very model of development under discussion. In fact, we need to learn how to live better and, at the same time, reduce our environmental footprint to respect the ecosystems. Here, we can clearly see the link between the environmental, socio-ethical, and economic dimensions of sustainability.

Within this framework, the international institutional context has recently recognized Design for Sustainability as one of the key disciplines to foster sustainability. In fact, Design for Sustainability has enlarged its scope and field of action over time.

The track [Changing] Ecosystems invites research projects, case studies, and critical reflections on: design for sustainable materials and energy, product design for sustainability, product-service system design for sustainability, design for sustainable Distributed Economies, design for Circular Economy, design for sustainable business models, design for sustainable informal economies, design for sustainability transition, and design in the context of sustainability transitions (theory, methods and tools).

• Design for sustainability
• Circular Design
• Materials for transition

Camilo Ayala García, Libera Università di Bolzano
Cindy Kohtala, Umeå Institute of Design, Umeå University
Valentina Rognoli, Politecnico di Milano
Carlo Vezzoli, Politecnico di Milano

How can we innovate collaborative processes and codesign knowledge, methods, and tools while considering current socio-technological transformations? How can we raise awareness and engagement about urgent issues of public interest within individuals and communities? How can we enhance shared decision-making and democratic participation in the communities of practice? Which are the emerging roles (and rules) for individuals, communities, and public and private entities in these processes? And how can design contribute to defining, facilitating, and guiding them in support of a systemic transition that considers the sustainability of (both) social and environmental innovation?

The track [Changing] Communities encourages contributions to explore how design can trigger a sustainable behavioural change in human beings while contributing to empowering communities in developing social and environmental innovations.

• Behavioural change
• Social innovation
• Sustainable social innovation
• Codesign
• Coproduction

Susana Gonzaga, Universidade da Madeira
Ki Young Nam, Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology
Agnese Rebaglio, Politecnico di Milano
Daniela Selloni, Politecnico di Milano

What inspires change in design education? What changes does design education enhance? What is missing in design education today? And what and where are the problems?

Design as both practice and academic discipline is so complexly entwined in the matrix of contemporary society that it cannot avoid change. Many design educators are fully aware of the demand for change, but its multiple aspects may be confounding. While the known is comforting, change is uncertain and threatening. Design education traditions may be tenaciously and reasonably motivated in their hold on educators’ understanding and performance. Since change demands attention, adaptation, planning, and visioning, it drives maintenance in service for the future without abruptly excluding the consolidated knowledge that grounds it.

The track [Changing] Education encourages contributions to foster clarity and identity for design educational goals, attention to robustly grounded but dynamic educational planning, and openness to plurality and differentiation. Contributors, on their side, are not expected to provide consensus but to offer critical perspectives.

• Education methods and tools
• Education paradigms, goals, and perspectives
• Collaboration in education
• Inclusive and/or participatory education

Elena Caratti, Politecnico di Milano
Silvia Ferraris, Politecnico di Milano
Silke Lange, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London
Zang Yingchun, Tsinghua University

How can we examine and extend discourse connecting spatial and service design as an integrated knowledge base?

We are interested in exploring how both approaches are jointly influencing the development of contemporary ways of living within complex urban settings, with a particular focus on easing the relationship among functions; triggering generative and transformative actions; enhancing public participation; supporting the emergence of new publics; and guaranteeing inclusivity and diversity to stimulate positive attitudes. 

The track [Changing] Spaces and Services welcomes contributions presenting theories, methods, and projects of integrated design interventions where spaces are drivers for the transformation of current services and where services are enablers of an innovative typology of spaces. These will investigate studies and offer reflections that consider design interventions across all scales (micro, meso, and macro) and other disciplines too.

• Service + spatial design
• New publics
• Transformative/generative actions
• Integrated knowledge

Brian Dixon, Ulster University
Davide Fassi, Politecnico di Milano
Daniela Sangiorgi, Politecnico di Milano
Lou Yongqi, Tongji University

How do technologies change us? How can we shape technology to respond to social and contextual changes? And how do augmented, virtual and mixed environments and experiences impact communities, processes, and professions?

Developing digital technologies and their applications is decisive in creating solutions apt to face the present societal and environmental crises and building desirable future scenarios. While the digital transition calls for changes in behaviours, mindsets, cultures, and organizations, these changes influence it. Here, digital and physical are progressively intertwined, enabling the creation of interoperable services and giving rise to a new generation of augmented, virtual, and mixed environments and experiences.

Nowadays, the responsibility of Interaction Design is to devise opportunities for valuable and desirable innovation and give sense to technology-based transformations by foreseeing its impact and involving the social actors in co-creating innovative solutions.

The track [Changing] Interaction welcomes contributions reflecting on:

• Interaction design
• Behaviour change
• Physical-digital experiences
• AR-VR

Mauro A. Ceconello, Politecnico di Milano
Sangwon Lee, Yonsei University
Panos Markopoulos, Eindhoven University of Technology
Margherita Pillan, Politecnico di Milano

Can design research offer new approaches to the knowledge, preservation, and cultural experience of Cultural Heritage? And can it also help to activate participation dynamics to reintegrate relevant portions of the Cultural Heritage that have remained excluded from the current development paradigm?

In this challenging time, we are coping with continuous and impetuous changes. New instability marks social and political structures, while technological growth affects them deeply. Dramatic changes related to the impact of human activities on the planet are urgently emerging as consequence of the development paradigm we have adopted until now.

Large portions of the Cultural Heritage also suffer from increasing erosion and modification. And great artistic masterpieces are being communicated and shared in new ways to suit global audiences and multiculturalism. In this context, museums and cultural sites should rethink their role, mission, and paradigm of the cultural experience. They should be open to “new” forms of museography and museology (i.e., museums and: digital transformation, post-digitality, human-centred design practices, social inclusion…).

The track [Changing] Heritage aims to stimulate the community of scholars dealing with the challenges global change poses to Cultural Heritage. We invite contributors to share their research, ideas, and experiences with:

• Tangible and intangible heritage
• Museums
• Arts
• Cultural experience
• Design & Humanities

Carlo Franzato, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
Rodolfo Maffeis, Politecnico di Milano
Marco Mason, Northumbria University–Newcastle
Raffaella Trocchianesi, Politecnico di Milano